I only read it for the articles

Writing is widely regarded, I am often startled to discover, as inherently cool. As a person who spends her days muttering to herself in a book-padded room (although rarely in pajamas) I need reminding of the exotic caché of Being a Writer.

Mostly I get those reminders through my friends, such as this weekend in la La Land: dining with agents who are instrumental in transforming books to screen and are on a first name basis with those faces usually seen in close-ups or with exploding objects in the background. On the same patch of grass with the entourage moving Carol Channing from green room to stage. And then riding up the Pacific Coast Highway with a friend who has not only spent hours chatting with Stars about Sherlock Holmes, but even had one clamber over his gate to get at him.

His kids are, finally, impressed. Not only at his links with Hollywood, but with this:

is unarguably Cool. As proof, he has an article in the October issue of Playboy, because he’s not only the annotator of Holmes, and the future annotator of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but of Dracula as well, and Playboy needed An Expert.

The article’s a little tricky to read, being in multi-colored ink (mostly blood-red) and scattered across pages already graced with poor young women who look like new mothers suffering from an excruciating degree of engorgement (what can I say? I was a counselor for La Leche League…) but it manages the tricky balance of being both learned and titillating.